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Forum Guru
Last Login: 3/25/2022 5:22:19 AM
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Well, since I know there's n0o full scale 89 in my near future I got the Hotwheels 1:18 for Christmas. I wanted to take it apart and add LED's to the head and tail lights. As I was checking th emodel out I noticed they had to make a bunch of compromises in the construction. Fist off, I was only marrginally happy with the body and paint. The die cast part of the car (body) has a few rough edges and some paint blotches. As with all things doen overseas, there are parting lines all over. Anyway, I quickly realized that I wanted to try to make the car more screen accurate and more detailed. I thougth I'd take pics as I went along and keep posting them to this thread. I know a lot of people here have the 1:18 model and if you guys want to try some of these detailing ideas, I'll post a few little descriptions. Since I can't build a full scale one, this will have to be my contribution to the site. Hope you enjoy!
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When I die, I want to die like my grandfather, who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
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Forum Guru
Last Login: 3/25/2022 5:22:19 AM
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Here's the basic kit taken apart. Luckily they dont use glue, all of the plastic parts have pins that stick through the die cast body and then they hit it with a melting tool. So, if you want to take off parts, grab a soldiering iron and heat the joints and gently pull everything apart.
I started with the interior and you can see that I removed the dash and shift cluster thing and the panel between the seats.
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When I die, I want to die like my grandfather, who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
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"Tardmonkey of the Year"
Last Login: 9/6/2011 12:10:05 AM
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Looks like fun! Can't wait to see it done!!
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Forum Guru
Last Login: 3/25/2022 5:22:19 AM
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Here's the bottom of the interior. you can see the sloppy spots where they heated the pins to melt things in place. I removed everything except for the seats, which are a softer thermoplastic. (I didn;t want to fight getting the seats lose as thermoplastic will just melt and won;t keep it's shape as well as rigid plastic.
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When I die, I want to die like my grandfather, who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
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Forum Guru
Last Login: 3/25/2022 5:22:19 AM
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Here's the interior with all of the pieces removed. I painted the floor a lighter gray and then painted the seats and dash pad etc. with a darker gray color. Once the paint dried I added some white weathering powder (chalk) and made things look a bit sirty and worn - instead of like shiny plastic. The gray color will show up better as well. (Hey, I'm not going to go Onstar gray though!)
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When I die, I want to die like my grandfather, who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
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Forum Guru
Last Login: 3/25/2022 5:22:19 AM
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Here's a pic of the shift sluster and the headrests. I cut the headrests off and hollowed them out (pain in the butt). I will add tulle fabric painted with the dark gray color to them. The shifter was a major piece of work. I removed all the parting lines and tried to make the levers look more detached from the base. I painted them to match the original car. The main lever is silver with a gold tip. I noticed in the pics that there is a silver piece that runs up the right side of the cluster, so I fabrictaed the part from styrene and sanded the cluster down and then glued it on. I then dry brushed the whole thing with silver to give it a more metal look and used a toothpick to very carefully add some white paint that will hopefully look like really tiny print!
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When I die, I want to die like my grandfather, who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
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Forum Guru
Last Login: 3/25/2022 5:22:19 AM
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Okay, the silver part they put in for the instrument cluster between the seats was way off, so I tried to fabricate one. I probably could have done better, but I'll be honest, I have no patience. I need to buy some on ebay. Anyway, I made a square to cover the spot where the old part went and then cut out the two parts that make up the panel. i drilled holes in those and then painted everything my dark gray color. Then I cut off some of the chrome knobs from the original part and glued them on the new one to simulate screws. I painted a piece of wire silver and cut very short lentghs. I glued those in my drilled holes to try and simulte the small toggle switches. I then hit the switches with a little white paint on the ends and tried to add more text by dabbing paint on with a cut down toothpick. Yeah, this was interesting... I looks a bit sloppy, but much better than the original.
You can see I got the headrests put back togtehr and added back in. The hardest part was cutting the tulle to size and gluing it in. Major pain. The toggles help to add depth from the side:
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When I die, I want to die like my grandfather, who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
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Forum Guru
Last Login: 3/25/2022 5:22:19 AM
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A few shots of the interior put back together. I'd like to redo the dash, but I'm not sure how to make it look good in such a small scale. I think I leave it as it is...
Next project will be adding the LED's in. Hopefully I'll get that taken care of tomorrow night....
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When I die, I want to die like my grandfather, who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.
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You reap what you sow
Last Login: 5/10/2023 9:00:46 AM
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Has NO LIFE!!
Last Login: 10/27/2014 6:30:59 PM
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Wow that looks great.
DH "New GA owner"? Do you have something to tell us?
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